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Radio Caroline, the first offshore pirate radio station, which began broadcasting exactly 50 years ago, launched the careers of many famous disc jockeys: people like Roger Day, Johnnie Walker and Tony Blackburn.

But one of the very first Radio Caroline DJs hung up his headphones and decided to follow a very different career path, as our political correspondent Phil Hornby reports, with Sir Roger Gale MP.

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Precisely 50 years ago today, test tansmissions began for a radio station that would help to change the face of broadcasting across the UK. That radio station was Caroline - an unlicensed, "pirate" broadcaster, transmitting from a ship anchored just outside British waters.

Here's David Johns to remind us how Caroline fought the law - and what's happened to it since the sixties. He speaks to Caroline's current manager, Peter Moore, plus DJs Johnny Lewis and Roger Day.

This Friday marks a very special anniversary: it'll be exactly fifty years since the first full broadcasts began from Radio Caroline, a so-called "pirate" radio ship moored a few miles off the Kent coast. Caroline and the other estuary pirates made history - and made legends of their DJs.

We've compiled three special features about the ship and its history - and here's David Johns with the first - a look back at how it all started.